Public health refers to social, cultural, economic, and geographic conditions that affect a population's well-being. To assist local, national, and international health agencies and organizations, RAND conducts research on public health issues including disaster preparedness and recovery; surveillance, prevention, and management of infectious disease outbreaks; screening for and prevention of chronic diseases; and ways to strengthen the public health infrastructure.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This study suggests four timely US actions to address today's competing realities of globalization and economic austerity: raise awareness among clinicians and local health departments; capture and share exemplary disaster management practices across countries; ensure that US global health investments are effective, efficient, and sustainable; and think globally while acting locally to enhance US health security.
BLOG
A better solution than restricting emergency department use by Medicaid enrollees is to reverse what for many years has been a trend of shrinking access to primary care for Medicaid beneficiaries.
COMMENTARY
The fact that many ED (emergency department) visits could be managed in primary care settings does not mean that such care is available, write Arthur L. Kellermann and Robin M. Weinick.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Respondents in a representative sample of the US adult thought combination vaccines were safe and were willing to pay extra to avoid minor side effects and increase vaccination coverage in their communities.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This study seeks to evaluate longitudinal trends in people's risk perceptions and vaccination intentions during the 2009 H1N1 pandemic.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The availability of junk food does not significantly increase BMI or obesity among a group of fifth-graders even though they are likely to buy junk food.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Most local public health officials rely on their perceptions of the legal environment in which they operate, but those perceptions often do not match the actual laws enacted.
REPORT
The Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI) aims to improve communities' ability to rapidly provide life-saving medications during public health emergencies. The authors examine (1) the status of communities' operational capability to meet the goal of delivering medical countermeasures within 48 hours of a federal decision to deploy assets and (2) whether there is evidence that CRI has improved communities' capability to meet that goal.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
As health care reform expands the use of "report cards" to grade health care providers, greater attention to reporting methods may be needed to assure the quality of such efforts.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
A majority of HCP support influenza vaccination requirements. Moreover, providing HCP with information about the safety of influenza vaccination and communicating that immunization of HCP is a patient safety issue may be important for generating staff support for influenza vaccination requirements.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The authors analyze data from the 2008 National Association of City and County Health Officials Profile of Local Health Departments survey, and propose an improved composite measure of centralization that can be computed for all local health departments within a state, as opposed to a single state respondent, as done in 1998.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This study examines how characterization of risk may change when susceptibility is explicitly considered in policy development; in particular we examine the process used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to set a National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for lead.
REPORT
The study reports on the evidence and potential for use of 'emergency readmissions within 28 days of discharge from hospital' as an indicator within the NHS Outcomes Framework, drawing on a rapid review of systematic reviews.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Outdoor exercise equipment in parks seems to attract more new park users and result in a higher expenditure of energy.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
This study reviews the rationale for developing nutritional performance standards for away-from-home foods in light of limited human capacity to regulate intake or physiologically compensate for a poor diet.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
The authors use simulation studies to examine performance (bias, mean squared error, coverage probabilities, and power) of models using all three time scales when the primary exposure of interest depends on calendar time.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
Describes the importance of a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP), and identifies common strengths and potential vulnerabilities of laboratory-specific COOPs.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
HIV continues to be a serious public health problem for men who have sex with women (MSW), especially homeless MSW.
COMMENTARY
To assure the health security of the United States, we must be capable of stopping anything a terrorist or Mother Nature might throw at us. Wholesale cuts to public health are taking us farther from that goal, write Art Kellermann and Melinda Moore.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
A wide range of products and services exist to help patients convey personal health information. Health care providers should be familiar with their features, so they can access the information in a disaster or emergency.
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